The Secret of Sarek Maurice Leblanc (best detective novels of all time .TXT) 📖

stand, as behooves a man of breeding who prides himself on possessing a certain amount of savoir faire. Also pray excuse me for appearing in your presence in this more than careless attire. Internment-camps and the caves of Sarek are hardly places in which it is easy to renew one’s wardrobe.”

He was in fact wearing a pair of old patched trousers and a torn red-flannel waistcoat. But over these he had donned a white linen robe which was half-closed by a knotted girdle. It was a carefully studied costume; and he accentuated its eccentricity by adopting theatrical attitudes and an air of satisfied negligence.

Pleased with his preamble, he began to walk up and down, with his hands behind his back, like a man who is in no hurry and who is taking time for reflection in very serious circumstances. Then he stopped and, in a leisurely tone:

“I think, madame, that we shall gain time in the end by devoting a few indispensable minutes to a brief account of our past life together. Don’t you agree?”

Véronique did not reply. He therefore began, in the same deliberate tone:

“In the days when you loved me⁠ ⁠…”

She made a gesture of revolt. He insisted:

“Nevertheless, Véronique⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh,” she said, in an accent of disgust, “I forbid you!⁠ ⁠… That name from your lips!⁠ ⁠… I will not allow it.⁠ ⁠…”

He smiled and continued, in a tone of condescension:

“Don’t be annoyed with me, madame. Whatever formula I employ, you may be assured of my respect. I therefore resume my remarks. In the days when you loved me, I was, I must admit, a heartless libertine, a debauchee, not perhaps without a certain style and charm, for I always made the most of my advantages, but possessing none of the qualities of a married man. These qualities I should easily have acquired under your influence, for I loved you to distraction. You had about you a purity that enraptured me, a charm and a simplicity which I have never met with in any woman. A little patience on your part, an effort of kindness would have been enough to transform me. Unfortunately, from the very first moment, after a rather melancholy engagement, during which you thought of nothing but your father’s grief and anger, from the first moment of our marriage there was a complete and irretrievable lack of harmony between us. You had accepted in spite of yourself the bridegroom who had thrust himself upon you. You entertained for your husband no feeling save hatred and repulsion. These are things which a man like Vorski does not forgive. So many women and among them some of the proudest had given me proof of my perfect delicacy that I had no cause to reproach myself. That the little middle-class person that you were chose to be offended was not my business. Vorski is one of those who obey their instincts and their passions. Those instincts and passions failed to meet with your approval. That, madame, was your affair; it was purely a matter of taste. I was free; I resumed my own life. Only⁠ ⁠…”

He interrupted himself for a few seconds and then went on:

“Only, I loved you. And, when, a year later, certain events followed close upon one another, when the loss of your son drove you into a convent, I was left with my love unassuaged, burning and torturing me. What my existence was you can guess for yourself; a series of orgies and violent adventures in which I vainly strove to forget you, followed by sudden fits of hope, clues which were suggested to me, in the pursuit of which I flung myself headlong, only to relapse into everlasting discouragement and loneliness. That was how I discovered the whereabouts of your father and your son, that was how I came to know their retreat here, to watch them, to spy upon them, either personally or with the aid of people who were entirely devoted to me. In this way I was hoping to reach yourself, the sole object of my efforts and the ruling motive of all my actions, when war was declared. A week later, having failed in an attempt to cross the frontier, I was imprisoned in an internment-camp.”

He stopped. His face became still harder; and he growled:

“Oh, the hell that I went through there! Vorski! Vorski, the son of a king, mixed up with all the waiters and pickpockets of the Fatherland! Vorski a prisoner, scoffed at and loathed by all! Vorski unwashed and eaten up with vermin! My God, how I suffered!⁠ ⁠… But let us pass on. What I did, to escape from death, I was entitled to do. If someone else was stabbed in my stead, if someone else was buried in my name in a corner of France, I do not regret it. The choice lay between him and myself; I made my choice. And it was perhaps not only my persistent love of life that inspired my action; it was also⁠—and this above all is a new thing⁠—an unexpected dawn which broke in the darkness and which was already dazzling me with its glory. But this is my secret. We will speak of it later, if you force me to. For the moment⁠ ⁠…”

In the face of all this rhetoric delivered with the emphasis of an actor rejoicing in his eloquence and applauding his own periods, Véronique had retained her impassive attitude. Not one of those lying declarations was able to touch her. She seemed to be thinking of other things.

He went up to her and, to compel her attention, continued, in a more aggressive tone:

“You do not appear to suspect, madame, that my words are extremely serious. They are, however, and they will become even more so. But, before approaching more formidable matters and in the hope of avoiding them altogether, I should like to make an appeal, not to your spirit of conciliation, for there is no conciliation possible with you, but to your reason, to your sense of reality. After all,